Transcript The Indian New Deal - University of Miskolc

The Indian New Deal
• Franklin D. Roosevelt- Presidential inauguration in 1933
• Harold L. Ickes- as the Indian commissioner; later: the Secretary of
Interior
• Indian Reorganization Bill, introduced in mid-Feb. 1934
The Indian New Deal
• Called as Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) or the Wheeler - Howard
Act
• 18 June, 1934 by the US Congress
• Certain rights to native Americans
• Reversal of the Dawes Act
• Restored to the management of their assets
John Collier
• Collier as the former assistant of Indian commissioner chosen by
Roosevelt
- hope to achieve Indian self- support and self- govt.
- Indian CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps)
- Indian Reorganization Bill, introduced in mid-Feb. 1934
- 18 June, 1934 by the US Congress
- Improving of the OIA (Office of Indian Affairs)
- Health care (Indians’ most serious health problems)
• His goals:
- improving existing schools
- closing boarding schools
- developing day schools
- teaching Indian children to appreciate their own tribal heritages
Harold L. Ickes (Secretary of the
Interior) hands the 1st constitution
issued under the IRA to delegates
of the Confederate Tribes of the
Flathead Indian Reservation
• Possibility to adopt a constitution
- in case of this they had to:
1. Allow the tribal council to employ legal counsel;
2. Prohibit the tribal council from engaging any land transitions without
majority approval of the tribe; and,
3. Authorize the tribal council to negotiate with Federal, State, and local
governments.
•
Native American Technical Corrections Act of 2003
•
The IRA:
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Slowed the assignment of tribal lands to individual tribal members
Practice of checker boarding land sales
2 million acres of land were returned
•
1954: US Department of Interiorthe termination and relocation
phases of the Act
Result: 61 tribal nations within the US
Thought: existence for an indefinite
period of time
•
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• Constitutional challenges
 1995: ‘the IRA is unconstitutional’ by the Eighth Circuit
 DOI’s (Department of Interior) new regulations- the Supreme Court
reconsidered the decisions
• Indian critics formed the American Indian Federation (AIF) in August
1934
- Goal: Collier’s resignation and the repeal of the IRA
- Collier resigned on January 19, 1945
• The Act :
- successful in tribal land base
- unsuccessful in self-governing of the tribes
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